Fisher "F" Series Forum

New F70 users please don't ever discount the value of the standard elliptical if that is the model you own or start with.
I got other coils and I love them too. The large F75 DD has scary depth, a little more than the concentric in good soil in good soil, and can be adjusted with your settings to hunt in very trashy environments easily and of course the coverage is great.
The sniper DD coil is one of my favorites because I hunt in some very trashy and iron infested areas with some heavy mineralization and it does its job more than well with also some very eye opening and surprising depth.
That elliptical, however, is different...a bit different in the sounds I hear, the response, the speed and just everything.
I put this thing on the bottom of my rod and smile every time I get that first signal of the day.
A gold and silver magnet, depth is great or at more than enough for my needs in my southeastern clay filled devil dirt and yesterday I explored an out of the way area of my local park with several difficulties and it worked beautifully.
I started in a small area with hard clay that I believe was a dump site at one time and also filled with lots of normal park trash such as can slaw, tabs and foil.
Dug some junk, in this soil unless it is on top of the ground or very shallow no numbers are very stable and most everything deeper jumps around a bit but I have learned new indicators, behavior and language to help me avoid most iron and the bulk of the trash.
In this area with a GB number about 80 I plucked out an old Curtis Industries key, a metal Revlon lipstick tube, a tax token in pretty decent shape, a condom package top that is a brand I have never seen before the LE Shunk latex co out of Akron Ohio and some kind of weird little aluminum fork...plus some modern clad.
I also found a piece of a cap gun luckily with the name on it that says Young Buffalo Bill plus hammers from 3 different cap guns in this area.
It sits behind some old houses so I think kids played in this area long ago.
All of these finds range from the 30's to the 50's.

I walked up a little trail that leads into some woods that are also on this side of the park, this part has some better black dirt but I was still GB'ing in the 80's because in this area of the country and my city the dirt is unforgiving, I found some modern clad but then I hit an area with some wheaties. After taking a break to clean these wheats to find a date I discovered one was a mid 40's but the other two were older...a 1925 and a 1919 in very good shape.
That made me go back to that site and into the woods a bit further where there very few signals but I did come across one more high one that I hoped was another old wheat but was way better.
It turned out to be the nicest and I think oldest merc I have come across so far and I mean great.

All these signals were good on the better targets, most of the trash I suspected was trash but in this environment you never know so I dug them.
All coin signals were great even in this garbage thanks to this coil's speed, response and distinct sound.
Along the way I even dug two modern quarters out if a hole with a huge rusty spike so in iron it performs fantastically well with separation almost on par with my DD's...maybe the shape has something to do with that.

All I can say is I love my F70 and all three coils I own get plenty of time out there in the field including this strange shaped concentric.
Never use the elliptical again, for me that will never happen because I have heard enough signals with all three, dug enough bucket list items with all of them to know in my heart if hearts that this thing is special.
If you get an F70 with that elliptical don't be in a hurry to get rid of it quickly becuause so many sing the praises of other coils.
Use it, listen to it, get to know it.
I have and it has a permanent place in my arsenal forever more.

"What if doing the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about?”
F70, F2, Compadre, Mojave, Judge2 - 2018....Mostly just some clad so far...more to come!

Revier, sounds like you had some fun on this hunt. That mercury dime looks to be in excellent condition, real nice find there. When my brother sold me this f5 it came with two coils one of them was the 10" concentric which I sold right away thinking I would not need one coil, got 85$ for it but after listening to what your saying maybe that wasn't a good idea. This 11" DD coil is a great fit and I've learned how to get it in some pretty tight spots by changing the angle to the ground, I may loose a little depth in those tight spots but not much.

Enjoy your write ups-for sure---- and there is something special with you and your F70 ___That Merc is Very fine ------ are you still smiling ???????? GH---------------------------after1--------------------

QuoteAfter-1-
Enjoy your write ups-for sure---- and there is something special with you and your F70 ___That Merc is Very fine ------ are you still smiling ???????? GH---------------------------after1--------------------

Smiling...my mouth hurts!
It looks better in real lifeguarding the pics, there is still some dirt on it so I want to be careful cleaning it for a couple of reasons.
The Philadelphia minting of this coin was many times larger than the Denver and San Francisco mints so not worth as much as them but in this shape it still could be worth more than normal moderately circulated coins.
One member on another forum saw an MS64 sell for $200 and $150 and up is common so even though I don't think it is that good it is up there at least in the 50's or maybe even into the 60's.
They overused the dies in Philly making these things so a full band version, (the top, middle and bottom bands holding the bundle together), is a premium variety and to my admitted amature eye under magnification using a loupe those bands look pretty darn sharp to me.
The middle one is the important one and not only does it look super sharp but I can see it is actually made out of 2 small ones with a separation in the middle as is the bottom band and the top band has 3 distinct parts.
One site has a full band MS61 variety going for about $80.
That member suggested at the very least get a coin shop to look at it and it might be worth professionally grading and slabbing.
Don't know about slabbing but this silly little dime could be worth anywhere from $40 on up.
I think I will keep it no matter what it grades out to be.

"What if doing the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about?”
F70, F2, Compadre, Mojave, Judge2 - 2018....Mostly just some clad so far...more to come!

Quotestill looking 52
Revier, sounds like you had some fun on this hunt. That mercury dime looks to be in excellent condition, real nice find there. When my brother sold me this f5 it came with two coils one of them was the 10" concentric which I sold right away thinking I would not need one coil, got 85$ for it but after listening to what your saying maybe that wasn't a good idea. This 11" DD coil is a great fit and I've learned how to get it in some pretty tight spots by changing the angle to the ground, I may loose a little depth in those tight spots but not much.

This is why I posted this stuff.
When I mentioned I was getting a couple of DD's for my F70 I was told by several members on a few forums I would never use this coil again.
One of them was mudpuppy but he never used anything else but a big DD on his so a grain of salt thing.
Others I noticed sold their elliptical quickly to add other coils that they thought might work better for their needs like you did so this is common.
The other different coils might just be the ticket and I have used a few so I know how great they are but I also had a lot of hours using this coil before I ever got those others so I had a chance to experience it, listen to it, notice the crisp response and sweet tones.
Then I put many hours on the other coils all the while switching between the three and slowly I could tell a difference between the concentric and the DD's.
It was slight but it was there.
I had this coil mounted when I came across a gold ring in the middle of and next to trash in a picnic area on my fourth hunt with the F70.
It found me a tiny smaller than a dime silver pendant at about 6" deep while moving that coil at warp 2 at the end of my first hunt on the way back to my truck.
Here in my bad dirt it hit on a quarter sized silver Masonic coin at 7-8" deep with solid, stable and to my surprise correct numbers which never happens around here on deep targets in this bad soil.
I got a big signal at 4" deep last summer and I had to chop my way down into the concrete hard dirt to get to the target but it sounded so good in DP tones my curiosity got hyped up big time even though I was pretty sure it was a big piece of can or other trash.
It was a silver Peace Dollar instead.
On these targets and all kinds of others it was what I heard and the behavior I saw on the screen made me dig them because...I had to.

I am not saying everyone should go out and get this coil...believe me I know how good the others can be when you need major depth or constantly hunt in heavy trash or iron because I have and use them all the time.
What I am saying is this coil seems to have some of the best aspects of the other coils and something special added to boot.
Fisher knew what they were doing when they made this the standard coil on the F5 and F70 and I think when added to the F75 this coil at the right frequency for that one can do a few things most F75 owners don't know about because most never had the experience with it.
If you are a jewelry hunter this thing excels at that task, I promise you this and you can ask Mike Hillis for his opinion too but it doesn't stop there, coins and everything else are more than just possible but expected once you understand how fantastic the response is while using it.
For those that get one with their initial purchase don't be in such a hurry to get rid of it so fast...it ain't exactly your father's concentric coil.

"What if doing the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about?”
F70, F2, Compadre, Mojave, Judge2 - 2018....Mostly just some clad so far...more to come!

I got a 10" concentric about a month ago, and I was on a hunt with my brother SL52 and we started getting some silver so I change to the 10" DD elliptical just because I know that coil better. So I didn't really give the 10 concentric a chance to show off. That small area is somewhat cleaned I went back the other day with the 6.5" elliptical concentric coil on the stick and was running it hot in the boost processor. I only came up with one bent wheat penny.

My next hunt I need to put that 10" concentric on the stick and just trust it for the day. Am I thinking right, this coil would not be all that good in the trash??

Ron in WV

Worked and lived in the Huntington West Virginia area all my life, retired 2010
US Air Force Vietnam Veteran (68-69 & 70-71)
Started getting into metal detecting around 1975

I got a 10" concentric about a month ago, and I was on a hunt with my brother SL52 and we started getting some silver so I change to the 10" DD elliptical just because I know that coil better. So I didn't really give the 10 concentric a chance to show off. That small area is somewhat cleaned I went back the other day with the 6.5" elliptical concentric coil on the stick and was running it hot in the boost processor. I only came up with one bent wheat penny.

My next hunt I need to put that 10" concentric on the stick and just trust it for the day. Am I thinking right, this coil would not be all that good in the trash??

Ron in WV

Not in my opinion, as a matter if fact it can surprise you in trashy sites.
The small sniper DD's are made for that type of environment but in my experience this coil is closer to them then you might believe and I mean real close with the right settings.
I have used it in great soil in Kansas in all sorts of situations, extreme trash, heavy iron, open areas and whatever else.
In that good soil I used that trick of turning the sense way down in trashy sites like near picnic pavilions to the 30-40 levels and just like it will do with the big DD coil in that situation it has the effect of shrinking the scanning field down to an almost laser-like precision scalpel so I could pick out the better targets easily.
I could still get down to the 6" level in that situation and that dirt even on low sense levels but I might have been reaching even deeper but I just didn't come across many targets past that so it is hard to tell.
In other wide open but still trashy areas at higher sense levels I still was able to pick out tons of non trash targets almost as well if not just as well as I can using a DD sniper...I think.
In heavy iron it is worked extremely well out there too and for covering ground that squished configuration almost made it seem to act like a DD coil to me, the target separation is surprisingly good around trash or iron too as I mentioned.
As far as depth there I could definitely get a few inches deeper using the big DD coil but I did dig several targets at the 8-10" level with this coil and many of them beaver tail tabs which maddeningly come in as dime signals when you get that deep using any coils on the upper end Fishers.
Still, I had to dig them because they might have been coins and after digging down to a measured 10" with this coil several times I was still happy to see a target down there that deep beaver tail tab or not and this was using disc most if the time.
What the heck are tabs doing down there that deep anyway?

Changing to my current geographic location all bets are off, the rules and target behaviors are so different that it took me months to learn a whole new language and new settings and ways to hunt...but I did eventually.
Here in heavy trash, mineralization and heavy iron which is my situation in about 99% of my sites now with at least 2 if not all three of these problems that coil still works more than well.
None of my coils get as deep as they could in Kansas but all three have reached the 8" marks on great targets and I have worked hard to get to that point but I did and it is almost an even playing field for all three in the depth department around here.
Separation in trash or iron...the sniper might be best suited for this task overall but I have found just about as many good targets using my big DD and this coil.
Masking...yep, this coil is pretty darn great at unmasking targets around trash or iron.
In your state I bet it will work just as well and also maybe even slightly better than that big DD coil in many situations but you will have to put some time on it and gain some experience to understand and realize it.

Honestly I have used the big and small DD's since I moved back here for more hours than this concentric but I do switch back to it from time to time and as I have said before the first target I come across when I use it always makes me smile.
I am a big sound guy and even though I usually use all metal or one of the 3 lower tone options when I hunt in Disc and watch the screen closely something about the tones I hear using this coil is just different enough from the DD's that I can tell.
Using the 3H or 4H options I can't convey how sweet those tones sound to me especially the high ones and when I found that Peace dollar I was actually using DP tones which is rare for me but still something in that tone made me go through a lot of effort and hassle to dig what I was 99.9% sure was trash...but that good solid tone made me dig it and in my mind I had no choice because it sounded so unusually good and was a solid 98-99 in the numbers on every pass from any direction.
Even though I have used the other coils more around here I still have a ton of hours on this one and just like on that Peace Dollar and that deep Masonic coin there have been so many other great targets I have dug that was purely because of the sound I heard using this coil no matter what the screen said.
Lots of those targets could have just been luck but I don't come close to digging it all, nowadays I still mostly cherry pick looking for better more high percentage signals on every hunt and there have been too many great targets recovered in tough and strange situations to call them all luck.
I still believe it is that sweet and unique response I get from this coil that triggers me to dig.
It took time to understand these sounds that make me dig by the way, it wasn't instantaneous but learned behavior just like most every experience I have had since switching to the F70.
I had a bunch of hours on this coil before I started using the DD's and when I got them I also assumed I wouldn't be using the elliptical much more after that but then something strange happened.
I still put that coil back on once in awhile weeks and maybe months after using the DD's just for a change of pace and every time I did I felt something different, heard something different.
Didn't know what it was exactly at first but over time I came to know that using these different coils is almost like switching between different machines and then after that I listened for that difference and I now know it is real.
F75 users that never had a chance to use a coil like this, ( to them I would think it would be akin to taking a step backwards), or for F70/F5 users that never used any other coil or had limited use with this coil before switching to others I don't believe would have had enough experience to realize the differences but now you have that chance so have faith and patience to get there.
I expect you to find some great targets in trashy sites with this coil...in time.

________________________________

BTW...since you mentioned hunting in trash this is a vid of my 4th hunt with the F70 and this coil.
Still didn't have a clue what I was doing, couldn't stabilize all the signals and numbers real well at this point but I was still finding stuff.
This is one of my best gold rings ever, big and 14k combo of white and yellow gold.
It was in a real trash heap and this thing was surrounded by and actually within an inch or so of some kind of trash.
I was moving the coil a bit fast but I still got a hint of a high tone in 4H and went back to examine this further because I did.
By maneuvering that coil I managed to get a pretty repeatable nickel signal despite that trash and even though I suspected a sta tab I still had to dig it.
Again I was not used to the amount of power and sensitivity I was holding at this point, I was hunting in a super trashy site and I still didn't have an inkling of a clue about the specific sounds from this coil yet but something in that tone and then getting some repeating nickel numbers made me dig it.
I hadn't owned this thing much more than a week at this point and this find paid for at least half of the price I paid for this detector at melt prices if not more.
So good around trash...yea.

They are still there but usually not real high, fleeting and not repeating anywhere near as much as DD coils can give off so you can tell right away.
Using DD's by pulling the coil back when you pass the edge over them the numbers will drop off a cliff and this is pretty fast and efficient but using the concentric it is even more efficient and instantaneous.

"What if doing the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about?”
F70, F2, Compadre, Mojave, Judge2 - 2018....Mostly just some clad so far...more to come!

Yesterday's hunt in an area I have hit way more times than I can count and I have drained of all obvious good signals.
I am now down to digging any signal, jumpy or not, that does not seem to be dead on iron although I do dig some of the larger higher number iron hits here because I love finding old pocket knives.
This was using this concentric coil, all metal, sense on 95, thresh on 4 and SL speed to punch through my mineralized iron infested soil.
I moved the coil extremely slow, painfully slow but just looking for any signal that was not iron or without many drops to iron.
Anything I got with numbers that stayed in the higher range got dug.
Most were trash, can slaw and bits and pieces of other metals and even some rusted iron that came in high.
This one was jumpy in the 50's to 60's two ways but no drops to iron so it got dug...and I got a surprise.
A very early toasted1800's button...maybe even from the late 1700's but really old no matter what.

In this environment every good target is rare and special...as is the F70 and any coil that fits it.

"What if doing the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about?”
F70, F2, Compadre, Mojave, Judge2 - 2018....Mostly just some clad so far...more to come!